The Avengers: United They Stand (TV Series)
| next = }} The Avengers: United They Stand, often shortened to just The Avengers, is the animated television series featuring the Avengers team from Marvel Comics. It is the eighth and final series in the Marvel Animated Universe. It was the first series featuring the Avengers, followed by , , and . Though individual Avengers have had their own shows with , , , and while the team has been guest stars on several others. The series was created during the backdrop of Marvel Entertainment's financial problems during the late 1990s. The show is often considered the worst Marvel animated series ever created. Background Rolad Poindexter approached Robert N. Skir and Marty Isenberg, both of fame, in 1997 about creating an Avengers cartoon. They detailed a thirteen-episode story arc, then decided that Captain America should have his own series. That series began development but was ultimately . However, before Fox Broadcasting Company could greenlight the series, Marvel Entertainment went bankrupt. When the company resolved its problems Poindexter revived the Avengers series and approached Eric and Julia Lewald. The series was greenlit and Ron Myrick was hired to oversee the series visual development. Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor were prohibited from appearing due to licensing issues. Eric Lewald stated that they did not want any of these characters overshadowing the others and the series becoming "Captain America and the Avengers" or "Thor and the Avengers". Ironically, this was one of the criticisms directed at . Scarlet Witch had a relationship with Wonder Man because of a storyline going on in the comics at the time. She usually was involved with Vision, and even married him, but was at the time separated. The styles of this series and were inspired by ''Batman Beyond'', which itself was inspired by Marvel 2099. This was why the series was changed to some unknown point in the future. Emory Myrick claimed it was "about twenty-five years in the future." The infamous armor designs were to "give them the capability to go into different environments like extreme heat or cold, or underwater, or outer space, and it'll enhance their abilities." Each armor was given an Avengers-style "A" to emulate the combadge from ''Star Trek: The Next Generation''. Due to a combination of low ratings and Marvel's financial problems, this series and were cancelled after only thirteen episodes each. It would not be until 2011 that the Avengers got their own series again with , featuring a more traditional team. Like , there were a number of proposed stories for the second season that never came to happen. Some include: *A two-parter with Captain America.Avengers In, Spider-Man Out--For Good? at Another Universe on Internet Archive *Hawkeye's return to the carnival where he grew up. *A flashback of how Scarlet Witch discovered her powers. *Appearances by the X-Men featuring actors from the series, many of whom voiced for the show. *When Ant-Man got stick from Gamma Radiation during a battle with Egghead they could call upon Bruce Banner. *A two-part episode with Thor and Loki. Story Hank Pym leads the Avengers, a collection of Earth's mightiest heroes consisting of Wasp, Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Scarlet Witch, Tigra, and Falcon. The machine Vision, their first adversary gravely injures Wonder Man but is reprogrammed to be part of the team. The team then has to fight Vision's creator Ultron. They continue to fight villains such as Kang, Hawkeye's former mentor Swordsman, the Masters of Evil, Attuma, Zodiac, Egghead, Salem's Seven, and Grim Reaper. The team comes across Ultron several times, with the mechanical villain becoming stronger and more powerful each time. Along the way they team up with legendary former Avengers Captain America, Iron Man, and Namor. Characters The series primarily used characters from the West Coast Avengers, which in the comics led to the formation of Force Works. Heroes included the leader Ant-Man, Falcon, the Vision, the Wasp, Wonder Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Both Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch previously appeared as regular characters on . Other characters that appeared were Ultron, Kang, Egghead, the Masters of Evil, the Grim Reaper, the Zodiac, the Swordsman, the Circus of Crime, Namor, Attuma, Agatha Harkness and the Salem's Seven. In the first episode Beast, Black Panther, Hulk, Namor, Quicksilver, and two unknown heroes were seen in portraits. Despite appearing in promotional images and in the title sequence, the Avengers' "Big Three" consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor were not featured. Captain America and Iron Man made guest appearances. Thor was reportedly set up to appear in the proposed second season, along with his step-brother Loki who in the comics forced the creation of the team. Episodes *The Avengers: United They Stand Episodes The show aired starting October 30th, 1999 until February 26th, 2000. Like and , the series only lasted thirteen episodes. Continuity The series takes place within the Marvel Animated Universe along with , , , , , , and . Since each series was created by different producers, an exact timeline is difficult to outline. It would take place after since Captain America was trapped in Red Skull's doomsday weapon. The series features the origin of Vision, who previously appeared with the Avengers in 's along with Wasp, Iron Man, and Captain America meaning that the two rejoined the team and that series takes place afterwards. Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Iron Man were previously part of Force Works on , which took place before. Cast : Reception The series was heavily criticized by fans and critics, often ranking it among the worst, if not the worst, of all animated series based on Marvel Comics. Critics felt that characters were not developed enough and were uninteresting. Many were confused by the lack of the "Big Three" when they had previously appeared in various series. The emphasis on relatively minor characters was disliked, as well as drastically altering notable figures. They also felt that Ultron lacked sufficient motivation for going after its creator. The animation was pointed out as being less that good. The transformations sequences were noted for being blatantly reused animation such as the ones used in the first season of . It was criticized for its apparent emphasis on selling toys, a point of contention between John Semper, Jr. and Avi Arad during the making of . Many critics felt it was simply an excuse to sell toys, whereas Semper argued that a good show could sell toys regardless. The series currently has a 5.4 on the Internet Movie Database though a 7.3 on TV.com. Comic The series featured a tie-in comic by Ty Templeton and Derec Aucoin. Like the series, the comic had low sales and only lasted seven issues. The first two issues take place before the series and explain the use of armor in the series. It was revealed that Hawkeye got his legs broken by Dragon Man and used Pym Particles to reduce the pain. The third issue explained how Wonder Man and Hawkeye joined. The comic featured a number of characters that did not appear in the series, and some who had never appeared in any Marvel Animated Universe series. Black Panther, Quicksilver, Black Widow, Baron Strucker, HYDRA, Black Knight, Doctor Doom, A.I.M., and Collector make appearances. Toys The show was heavily criticized for its complimentary toy line. The Avengers' costume were redesigned so that every character had "battle armor." There were battle armors for every occasion such as suits designed for jungle, ultra-armor, undersea, and space. In addition each character had their own personalized armor instead of being generic enough for everyone. There were also a number of battle armors sold in stores that did not appear on the show. In addition, the main villain Ultron would change designs quite often. All this seemed to suggest that the producers wanted to sell many different action figures. Thor did have his own action figure for his proposed appearance. Home Release Maximum Entertainment released the complete series on Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom on May 21st, 2007. It was a two-disc boxset featuring all thirteen episodes. Brightvision Entertainment released the first four episodes in an Avengers Collection DVD, which contained episodes from the and sections from . There have been no Region 1 release, nor does there appear to be plans for any. All thirteen episodes are available to stream on Disney+. References External Links *Marvel Animation Age *Internet Movie Database *TV.com *Wikipedia *Marvel Database Category:Marvel Animated Series Category:The Avengers: United They Stand Category:Marvel Animated Universe